Silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials are typically subjected to imagewise exposure, after which they are processed in color development, bleaching, fixation or bleach-fixation, washing, stabilizing and other processes. It is a known fact that thiosulfate, a compound which forms a water-soluble complex salt upon reaction with silver halide, other compounds which form water-soluble complex salts of silver, and sulfite, metabisulfite and other preservatives, all in contact with the light-sensitive material, enter in the washing process which follows the process using a processing solution capable of fixation such as a fixer or bleach-fixer and adversely affect the image preservability in the case of small amounts of washing water. It is therefore a common practice to wash down the salts from the photographic material with a large amount of water after processing with the processing bath capable of fixation to overcome this drawback.
In recent years, however, there have been increasing demands for a process which uses a reduced amount of washing water and which takes a measure against environmental pollution for economic reasons such as a shortage of water resources and rises in sewage service fee and fuel, light expenses and for a reason of environmental concern.
Means of meeting these requirements include the method in which water is flown in countercurrent in a plurality of chambers of washing tank, described in West German Patent No. 2,920,222, S. R. Goldwasser, "Water Flow Rate in Immersion-washing of Motion-picture Film", SMPTE. vol. 64, 248 253, May (1955) and other publications.
Also known is the processing method in which a preliminary washing tank is provided immediately after the fixing bath to reduce the entrance of pollutants in contact with the light-sensitive material into the washing process and reduce the amount of washing water.
However, none of these methods fully avoids the use of washing water. With the recent trends toward shortage of water resources and rise in washing cost due to increased price of crude oil etc., these processing methods are of great concern.
The present applicants proposed a processing method wherein development is followed immediately by stabilization without washing in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) Nos. 14834/1983, 34448/1983, 132146/1982 and 18631/1983 and other publications to offer a solution to the problems described above. However, even this method involves various drawbacks. For example, in conventional processing methods, the previous bath component transferred in adherence to light-sensitive material has been diluted to high extent, since a large amount of water is used for washing, which waste liquid can be discharged as such to rivers, sewers, etc. On the other hand, the stabilizing process described above results in much accumulation of the previous bath component in the stabilizer, which waste liquid cannot be discharged as such to rivers or sewers because it is banned by legal regulations on environmental pollution. This necessitates expensive commission of waste liquid recovery to dedicated companies. Thus, huge expense is required to dispose the waste liquid, though the washing water cost become zero.
A method of solving this problem is described by the present applicants in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication Nos. 235133/1985, 212935/1988 and other publications. This method is characterized in that the overflow from stabilizing bath is allowed to enter in the processing bath capable of fixation, i.e., the previous bath.
However, even this method has some drawbacks; when the overflow from stabilizer is allowed to enter in the previous bath capable of fixation, the preservative sulfite is consumed and sulfide precipitation occurs therein because formaldehyde is usually contained in the stabilizer for color negative films for the purpose of improving the image stability by closing the active point of 4-equivalent coupler. As a means of solving this problem, there is a method using a stabilizer containing substantially no formaldehyde. Although this method avoids sulfide precipitation, a problem of stain in the unexposed portion arises in relation to the dye image stability in color negative films containing a 4-equivalent magenta coupler.
To solve this problem, methods using a 2-equivalent coupler, described in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication Nos. 54261/1987, 19660/1987 and 298344/1988 have been proposed. However, these processing methods for 2-equivalent coupler, wherein the overflow from the stabilizing bath which follows the processing bath capable of fixation is allowed to enter in the processing bath capable of fixation as the previous bath, were found to pose a problem of easy occurrence of staining in the unexposed portion and has a drawback of easy occurrence of reticulation. This tendency poses a major problem when the processing solution capable of fixation is replenished with a small amount of replenisher.